Zack de La Rocha - Early Life and Childhood

Early Life and Childhood

De la Rocha was born in Long Beach, California, to a Mexican-American father, artist Roberto "Beto" de la Rocha, and a German-Irish mother, Olivia de la Rocha. His father played an integral part in his cultural upbringing. Beto was a muralist and a member of Los Four, the first Chicano art collective to be exhibited at a museum (LACMA, 1973). De la Rocha's grandfather was a Sonorensan revolutionary born in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico, who fought in the Mexican Revolution and worked as an agricultural labourer in the US. Later, de la Rocha would see the hardships his grandfather endured reflected in the struggles of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

When de la Rocha was a year old, his parents separated. He and his mother moved from East Los Angeles to Irvine, where Olivia attended the University of California at Irvine and earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology. He later described Irvine as "one of the most racist cities imaginable. If you were a Mexican in Irvine, you were there because you had a broom or a hammer in your hand." It was also at an Irvine grade school, where he met his friend and future Rage Against the Machine bandmate Tim Commerford. As a teenager, de la Rocha became a vegetarian, saying in 1989: "I think vegetarianism is really great, and I stand really strongly behind it." When asked why, he explained: "Inside me, I think that an animal goes through a lot of pain in the whole cycle of death in the slaughterhouse; just living to be killed. That whole situation is really messed up for animals, growing up in those little cooped-up pens. I just don't think it's worth eating that animal. I think animals should be free. There's so much other food out there that doesn't have to involve you in that cycle of pain and death."